John Vaccaro

© John Vaccaro

... is an architectural designer and artist based in Montreal. Working primarily across video and performance, his practice contends with and casts doubt upon ordered configurations of bodies and/in space through apertures of policy, memory, and identity.
        He holds an M.Arch. degree from McGill University where he was awarded the Ping Kwan Lau Prize in Architecture for his final design project, Rehearsing the (*) Bathroom. He also contributed to the conception and design for Eagle Village, an artist book notably acquired by the CCA, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Getty Research Institute.

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Projects + Selected Work


    Rehearsing the (*) Bathroom: A Collection of Scenographic Studies


    M.Arch. design final project
    Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, McGill University
    2024–25

    Advised by Andrew King
    Awarded the Ping Kwan Lau Prize in Architecture

    Assisted by Alynna Gao (Urinal Matrix, Stall Matrix, Urinals from Stall, Mirror, Mirror, Meet Me in the Men's Room), Nikki Apostilidis (Pink Paper Curtains), and Claudia Ng (Meet Me in the Men's Room)

    Rehearsing the (*) Bathroom is a speculative video/performance-based project exploring the gendered public bathroom—specifically the men’s room—as a political tool and preconstructed space of certainty which quietly, yet forcefully, conditions and homogenizes the/my body. Embracing the abject, or what might be considered taboo, each video attempts to destabilize assumed codes and dominant socio-spatial structures within the space through somatic and cinematic representations of embodied memories, daily rituals, and fabulated scenarios.

    Who draws the lines?
    Who decides what is Nature?

    When we enter a building, we do so through the bathroom. That is, our ability to linger in any given space is predicated on our ability to relieve ourselves. Further contextualized by an alarming increase in anti-trans policies on the table across North America today, Rehearsing doubly aims to combat the erasure of and hostility towards gender-expansive people by nurturing a deep sense of doubt around these taken-for-granted spaces.
    Video no. 01 Ambiguous Bodies
    00:03:01
    Video no. 02 Untitled (Blue Paper Suit)
    00:03:45
    Video no. 03 Recalling the (*) Bathroom
    00:02:49
    Video no. 04 Recalling the (*) Bathroom, Delaminated Scenes
    00:05:30 (Version A)
    00:01:30 (Version B, pictured above)
    Video no. 05 Urinal Form
    00:03:09
    Video no. 06 Recalling the (*) Bathroom, Reprise
    00:05:11
    Video no. 07 Urinal Matrix
    00:00:37
    Video no. 08 Stall Matrix
    00:00:37
    Video no. 09 Urinals From Stall
    00:02:07
    Video no. 10 Mirror, Mirror
    00:03:31
    Video no. 11 Pink Paper Mockup
    00:03:29
    Video no. 12 Don’t Cross the Green Tape
    00:11:45
    Video no. 13 Free Plan Plumbing (Compilation)
    00:10:11
    Video no. 14 Untitled (Alynna’s White Box)
    00:01:30
    Video no. 15 Pink Paper Curtains
    00:09:11
    Final Review: Meet Me in the Men’s Room
    00:02:07